Dear friends,
This week we will be celebrating two years at the Vintage Showroom. Two years is a short time in the grand scale of historical eons, but in retail, it is ages. If we were to measure our lives in boxes of books, we’ve lived two or three lifetimes in the past two years. LOTS of books have moved across our desk. Just scrolling back through Instagram or the archives on our website induces vertigo, and not a little existential dread. Holy mackerel—we were in a different place two years ago. We were exclusively selling books on a bus, for one thing. We had just given birth to a beautiful baby girl. We had hope, enthusiasm. Now we have a home. Thanks to Mary Hinton, Melinda Steffler, and Tammy Brown, we have a home at the Vintage Showroom—which is frankly the coolest fucking place in town.
If you’re still on our little email list, then you’ve come along for the ride. Despite us seeming never to stay too long in one spot (Jason’s mother called people like that ‘shifty’), you’ve hitched some corner of your star to ours. We are grateful. Whether you met us at Home County, or one of our shops downtown, or outside an independent coffee shop, or under the canopy at the Pinery, or along the shores of Georgian Bay, you’ve met us wherever our silly life of bookselling has taken us.
Thank you.
Thank you for reading our little essays. We love sitting across from each other at the kitchen table while writing them. We love snorting at our own jokes when one of us lands the best line. We love hearing back from you, and we especially love the zingers you send zipping back at us.
Thank you for visiting us at the Vintage Showroom. This whole venture means nothing if customers don’t walk in the door. Our crew is practically unemployable otherwise, so you’ve helped us make a living buying and selling. That’s a dream come true, frankly. Despite all obstacles, we likely will never stop. We hope that we’ve put some of the best vintage finds of your lives in your way.Each of us has our own style and focus, but our individual tastes have influenced each other like members of some bizarre art collective, and this co-mingling has resulted in something greater than the sum of its parts. Working here feels like hanging around downtown in the 90s. Honestly. There are fewer and fewer places like this. These places are important.
We have been thinking hard about exactly WHAT that quality is, how it is lost, and how places like the Vintage Showroom protect it. Expect rambling essays in the future on the topic. This shop feels like Dr. Disc sometimes, or Layman House, or the Brunswick, or the New Yorker Perhaps it has something to do with intention, how we all want locality, a place that has its own rhythm and vibe, a place where the sense of the larger world is in the background not the foreground, and local life feels welcome. There’s something really, really cool about seeing vintage furniture, clothes, books and weirdo material culture all walk through the door of one place. There’s something really, really cool about sharing that experience with other people who also get it.
Perhaps that’s it. We feel at home in places like this. That feeling—that feeling of home—some places have it, and some just don’t. In some places, you know you’re just a piece of a larger monetary puzzle. Your worth is determined by how effectively your bank account can be drained by merchandising and brand recognition, and although we can’t deny needing to make a living (who the bloody-well doesn’t?) this place does feel like home. Our colleagues have made us feel at home here.
So have you.
Much love,
Jason & Vanessa
